Amazon (Kindle?) 3D Smartphone launch June 18? Preview and early reports indicate it is.

The image is from BGR, from an article published in May, and being cited by other tech sites such as Geekwire reporting yesterday on Amazon's new TV and Web ad announcing the launch of something on June 18th in Seattle and inviting customers, developers and journalists to request invites to the event.

  Here's the video ad (plus reminder to subscribers to the Kindle-Edition of this blog that e-Ink devices don't do video) -- it's viewable at Youtube and is mainly a tease as it doesn't show the device but it does show the users' head movements, which match what is described by BGR in May in connection with a rumored 3D phone that doesn't require eyeglasses.  It's said to use 6 cameras, four of them low-power infrared sensors to track head movements to produce viewing of 3D-like images.  Add that -- in addition to the unique features involved -- pricing is expected to be attractive and likely to "turn heads" in several ways.

  Geekwire references an April 11, 2014 article in the Wall Street Journal (not visible to non-subscribers, but Marketwatch carries a scaled-down version.  The WSJ article includes the following:

' The retailer has been demonstrating versions of the handset to developers in San Francisco and its hometown Seattle in recent weeks, these people said.  People briefed on the company’s plans have been told that Amazon aims to announce the phone by the end of June and begin shipping phones by the end of September, ahead of the holiday shopping season...They said the phone would employ retina-tracking technology embedded in four front-facing cameras, or sensors, to make some images appear to be 3-D, similar to a hologram, the people said. '

Patents filings from 2008 and 2010 - what they show
Geekwire had another article yesterday on patents filed by Amazon (one for an invention by Jeff Bezos)

' What the patent filings show — at a high level — is a phone capable of detecting hand gestures, similar to the Xbox Kinect, along with the ability to track eye movement.  By tracking a user’s eye movement, the interface is able to shift, so the user can view it easily from any angle, which may also make typing on a touchscreen more accurate.
  . . .
Other features of the phone that have been reported include a 4.7-inch display, a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera, 2GB of RAM, and a potential plan to offset costs, called Prime Data, which would give users free access to content from certain websites and services, similar to AT&T’s “Sponsored Data” initiatives. '

  In an earlier BGR article, they reference KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has the best reputation for accuracy with Apple products and was definitely far and away the most accurate for Amazon's Yr 2012 line.

' In terms of specs, Kuo says the Amazon phone will feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, a 4.7-inch display with a pixel density of between 300 and 320 ppi, a plastic housing, a 13-megapixel main camera supplied by Sony, secondary cameras supplied by Primax, and a battery sized between 2,000 and 2,400 mAh.
  BGR has independently confirmed some but not all of those specs. '

Prime Data Plan?
  BGR adds (back in April) that Amazon's "secret weapon" would likely be a Prime Data plan.

' BGR has learned from multiple trusted sources that Amazon is planning to offer a unique wireless data plan alongside its first smartphone, which is set to launch in the coming months.

  The plan is tentatively named "Prime Data," and it will be positioned as one of several key selling points for the phone. '

 "More than one trusted source" mentioned the possibility of something with AT&T similar to or based on its "Sponsored Data" product, which "allows companies to foot the bill for data traffic used by specific apps and services on customers’ devices.  Any cellular data consumed while using apps covered by the program does not apply toward a subscriber’s monthly data cap.

  "With that in mind, sources who spoke with BGR believe Amazon may be planning to offer smartphone buyers free access to its various Prime-branded digital services."

 "Recent reports suggest the company will soon push further into the streaming music market with a new product that competes with the likes of Spotify and iTunes Radio.

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Amazon's storewide Black Friday Weekend and CyberMonday Week deals. Kindle 9.7" DX e-Ink eReader at $169. Office Suite Pro for Kindle Fire / Android on sale ($0.99 this minute). Adobe's unusual Black Friday deal on Photoshop CC and Lightroom 5. Excellent guide to Lightroom 5 for 35% off. Photography guide books at up to 50% off. Amazon's "sneak preview" of home and personal deals for CyberMonday Week. - Update2

Black Friday Deals
 While Amazon has been having the usual early Black Friday activity, it all started in earnest after midnight last night, everywhere.
  The links for Amazon: Amazon's Black Friday deals US, (UK also, as well as Canada)

There'll be new deals every 10 minutes, according to the business wires.

For Kindle Fire tablet users, Office Suite Professional, is $0.99 at the moment -- it's normally $14.99 at the Amazon Appstore,
  It'll be available at varying prices during the week, their press material says.

  The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9" has a limited subset of this productivity on the tablet.

A lower price agaih on the large, 9.7" Kindle DX e-Ink eReader again
We have a very quiet new reduction this week (originally said, 4 days ago, to be "for a limited time" but that statement is missing now -- yet, it shows both the $239 price (which prevailed the last 6 months until the recent change to $199) and the $169 which was said to be a limited-time offer.  That's probably so, judging by the two prices under the Kindle eReader family header for that model currently.

  The Kindle DX Graphite e-Ink eReader had been $239 for awhile after the price was lowered from $299 for the resuscitated e-Ink giant, and for a few days it was $189 before going back to $239 on Oct 15.  $199 seemed to be the new price on Nov 13 rather than a temporary number but they've lowered it this week while keeping the $239 tag on it as well.

This 9.7" e-Ink Kindle eReader, with more text on a 'page' and larger fonts that look as if they are etched onto the screen, had made a sudden re-appearance on Amazon's e-Ink family header in May 2013, at $299 (formerly $379 when new).

  You can see detailed information on what this device is like in the blog article from May 31 about the larger e-Ink eReader many have hoped would remain available.

I see no other Kindle items mentioned though, though I imagine they will have an older model on sale briefly during one of their "Goldbox" or "Lightning" deals that will be changing very quickly this week.


Adobe's Creative Cloud program for Photoshop and Lightroom
Before I list items for which Amazon plans to offer some heavy discounts during "Black Friday Week" (not detailed on their page this way but itemized on a press release), I want to draw attention to three Sales items (two of the three are not Amazon-related) for the Photography buffs in your fanily or circle, as the Adobe deal is an unusual deal for those who have never bought Photoshop before because it was unaffordable, and the other is a guide to Adobe's Lightroom 5. /
  The guide is an excellent (and beautiful) tutorial to the ultra flexible and powerful Lightroom 5 software that Adobe developed for customers working with just photographic images (no Illustrator, Dreammaker or designer features) and which is therefore less pricey due to its more concentrated focus.

First, Adobe has had a deal (for a little over a week now) which ends at midnight on Monday Dec. 2.  Their more than controversial Creative Cloud program had changed Adobe's distribution method from Package Sales to Subscription Plans, with subscription pricing that was rightly met with tremendous hostility from the photography-inclined, as it was too costly and, as with car rentals, you don't keep the car if you stop leasing it.

  The current and final boxed edition of Photoshop is Version 6.  They will support updates for new cameras and bug fixes but won't be adding new features.  Instead they now offer 'CC' (Creative Cloud) versions of Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Illustratork and 36 or so other Adobe programs.  In an attempt o mollify the photographer mobs, in September they made a special-priced subscription of $19.95/month for Photoshop CC and Lightroom 5 users who had previously purchased Photoshop 3 or later versions.  But that was still too high for software you don't keep if you stop your subscription and also for those who have avoided Photoshop due to its overly high pricing (for example, the now older Photoshop 6 Box package is $700).

As of last week and until Monday night at 11:59pm, ANYone (whether or not you previously purchased an expensive Photoshp package) will be able to join the "Creative Cloud" program and have unlimited access to full Photoshop and updates as well as to Lightroom 5 -- for $9.99 per month for the first full year  Remember that the last Photoshop box package is still $700 to purchase and its software updates have cost $130 to $150 or so each time.

To learn more about this or to take Adobe up on this very unusual limited offer, here's the article that alerted me to the $10/mo offer and and here's the Adobe's info and sign-up page with a link to their FAQ on this.  They've told two workshop leaders (Scott Kelby and Michael Frye) that they don't plan to raise the pricing the 2nd year but one can't rely on that.
  Update There are some assurances given on Adobe's site in its blogs with a Question & Answer area:

"By Julieanne Kost - 12:14 PM on November 21, 2013
The difference is that this is a limited time offer for those who do not have a copy of Photoshop CS3 or newer.
For both offers, Photoshop. $9.99 is *the* price – not a first year promo – so the price won’t go up to $19.99 after a year.  All the memberships carry that disclaimer because we can’t say the price won’t ever go up in the future to account for things like inflation.  We also can’t say the price won’t go down in the future either.  For example, Lightroom’s price was cut in half between Lightroom 3 and 4 – and Photoshop’s price has gone both up and down over its 23 year history."

That Adobe thread is interesting reading and answers a lot of questions people have had on their special temporary deal, including whether people can switch their previous subscription plans to the lower one or not (the answer is yes).

http://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/2013/11/photoshop-photography-program.html
  It looks as if previous owners of Creative Suite 3 or above have until December 31 to take the deal, while others have a deadline of December 2.
  Kelby, the prolific photography book author and Photoshop adherent, points out, impatiently, misinformation about the deal


  Here's info on the Black Friday special for Michael Frye's excellent Step by Step guide to Lightroom 5 in PDF format.  He's a wonderful photographer who writes some of the best, easy to follow tutorials around.  Normally his guide to Lightroom 5 is $14.95 but it's 9.95 until Monday night, Dec. 2.

  Anazon also has a sale on photography and camera guides.  Most of the discounts are on printed versions, at up to 50% off.


Amazon's deals will come every 10 minutes during Cybermonday week
  These start Sunday night st midnight, running for 7 days and including "50% off select top toys and 50% off a 46-inch Samsung LED HDTV."  This immediately follows Black Friday (links at the top), and the Black Friday pages have CyberMonday links on them, as the idea is to of course Sell, and all the stores are aggressively doing that.  Watching this on TV, I wouldn't know we are in the middle of a slow economy.

Here's the sneak preview listing of the "CyberMonday" items going on sale after Midnight Sunday, from their press releases.

Electronics
Samsung 46-Inch 1080p 60Hz LED HDTV, $477.99
Samsung 46-Inch 1080p 240Hz 3D Ultra Slim Smart LED HDTV, $1,297.99
40% off a Panasonic 47-Inch and 55-inch 1080p 240Hz Smart 3D LED HDTV (Includes 4 Pairs of 3D polarized glasses with built-in camera)
Touchscreen laptop, $199.00
Roku HD streaming media player, $39.99
Canon PowerShot point-and-shoot, save 46% off
Canon EOS Rebel T3 DSLR (18-55 kit) for $399
Nikon COOLPIX P520 with bag and memory card for under $300
Nikon D3200 Digital SLR Camera and 2 lens kit, under $500
Save up to $150 on select Sony Handycam camcorders
10% off select Beats and Bose headphones
57% off a Philips speaker dock for iPhone5
40% off a TomTom 6-inch GPS navigator with lifetime traffic & maps
50% off a Sony portable Bluetooth wireless speaker system
$100 Amazon.com gift card plus free SONOS BRIDGE with the purchase of a SONOS PLAYBAR
Toys

Up to 50% off select top toys
50% off Barbie 3-Story Dream Townhouse
40% off Lincoln Logs Redwood Junction - Amazon Exclusive
Razor Spark 2.0 Kick Scooter, $44.99

Pets
20% off Ruffwear dog apparel and accessories
Aquarius Glofish 180 3-1/2-gallon aquarium kit, $26.35

Home and Tools
Dyson multi floor compact canister vacuum cleaner, $179
More than 65% off select DEWALT tools
Get a $40 Amazon.com gift card with purchase of a Nest Learning Thermostat - 2nd Generation
GreenWorks 40V 16-inch DigiPro brushless chainsaw, $239.20
Hoover FloorMate SpinScrub wet/dry vacuum, $89.99
Custom Leathercraft Tool Backpack, $49.99
Fiskars Ultra Blade Power Gear Bypass Lopper for pruning- 25-Inch, $24.96
Rayovac LED flashlight, $19.99
Grill Daddy Pro grill brush, $15.98

Books, Movies and Music
Up to 50% off popular books including Guinness Book of World Records 2014
Save up to 58% on over 7,000 movies & TV shows on DVD and Blu-ray including Homeland: Season 2, Rise of the Guardians, and Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventures
Save on popular CDs including Eric Church “Chief” $5.49, Imagine Dragons “Night Visions” $5.49 and Celine Dion “Loved Me Back to Life” $7.49
Over 60 superhero movies and TV shows including Superman, Smallville and more available at Amazon Instant Video, up to 60% off

Kitchen
Cuisinart 10-Piece premium grilling set, $40.95
More than 50% off select Circulon, Anolon and Cuisinart copper cookware sets
Marcato pasta machine, $59.99
Peugeot Elis U'Select electric 8-inch salt mill - Stainless Steel, $55.96
Save 15% with purchase of $50 or more on Chef’n kitchen items
Save 20% with purchase of $100 or more on Paderno World Cuisine kitchen items

Sports and Outdoors
Up to 70% off New Balance clothing
Up to 70% off ASICS running clothing
Up to 45% off Adidas golf apparel
50% off TaylorMade Burner Plus Irons
Up to 35% off top golf GPS units by GolfBuddy

Fashion
30% off $100 shoes for the family – boots, slippers and more
Up to 65% off men’s and women’s cashmere
Up to 70% off jewelry
Rubber and silicone watches, starting at $59.99

Baby
30% off Graco baby swings
20% off Philips AVENT gift set

Automotive
Up to 70% off select car floor mats
Up to 40% off select car care products
Stanley 500-amp jump starter with built-in air compressor, $60

All prices available at select times and while supplies last.

For reference, here is the Current Global Listing of available Kindle devices.

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    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

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Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!